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Oh, please. This "internal communication" was a bunch of blue hearts if the source is to be believed. What vital business information did that leak?

WalterBright 4y ago
It's much easier to have a rule that says "no public posting of internal communications" than "make a judgement call about whether an internal communication is vital or not". And with an upheaval going on at Twitter at the moment, nobody has the time to do the latter.
- mathattack 4y ago
  This! Sometimes it’s not bad behavior, it’s “we just don’t have time for this sh!t.” Their HR and PR people are busy enough today. This isn’t a broad defense of Musk or Twitter. Just a comment that there doesn’t have to be a conspiracy around any corner.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    Whether it is malicious or lazy, it shows where "free speech" ranks among their values. You have time for the things you really care about.
- meheleventyone 4y ago
  But it's one thing to have that rule and punish people that leak and another to delete the leaks from your platform. Particularly if you profess to be pro-freedom of speech.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Leaking confidential information that you agreed to not leak is actionable as a contract violation. It's not a free speech issue.
    - meheleventyone 4y ago
      Of course it is. The contract is merely an agreement that you won't exercise your right. It's actionable in a civil court obviously. That however says nothing about your right to publish or that the content must be removed just that changing your mind might have repercussions.
      - johnbellone 4y ago
        It isn't.
    - brookst 4y ago
      Are you suggesting that Twitter will similarly remove leaks of other companies' confidential information? Or is this just a special case where they will be free speech absolutists for everyone else but carefully curate what people are allowed to say about Twitter?
      - mcrad 4y ago
        Twitter has a responsibility to its shareholders to protect its information. Why on earth are people jumping to the conclusion they would take on any similar responsibility for another company??
        ytpete 4y ago
        Because not doing so would fly completely in the face of everything Elon claimed he wanted Twitter to stand for. They would be putting their finger on the scale to censor speech critical of Twitter, and Twitter only. (Or maybe other favored groups and politicians too, who knows? Starting off like this on day 1 kills any trust in neutral moderation immediately). Edit: that said, I'm not sure it's been confirmed yet whether the employee just deleted the tweet themself - which would be a very different story.
        mcrad 4y ago
        Twitter is a beast. I think it would be a mistake to evaluate what it "stands for" based on some edge case of who/what/why behind a single tweet. Consider the fact that most execs at the top of this thing we call capitalism, are routinely caught in ethical dilemmas. Even the individuals you have decided are on your "side" morally, are forced to occasionally compromise their ethics in the short term, to achieve a longer term goal that is far more complex than people are giving credit here when they use terms like free speech so casually.
- maxbond 4y ago
  It seems far more likely removing this tweet was a response to the publicity it was getting, and was an effort to keep such dissent from being aired publicly (and thus a contradiction with Musk's stated principles and goals for this takeover), than that it was an ordinary moderation process that just happened to produce this outcome. The disruption you cite makes it far less likely that this is by the book, not more.
  - shawnz 4y ago
    What makes that explanation more likely than the other? Imagine there was no optics problem here, and it was just a highly publicized tweet of some internal comms with no PR consequences, it would still obviously need to be removed, right?
    - maxbond 4y ago
      That's not obvious to me, no. What I'd imagine is something like this being escalated, and that there would be reasonable cases to be made either way; that all internal information should be removed on principle, and that removing this tweet would harm the company without improving it's security posture. Twitter has historically been pretty reluctant to remove tweets, so I wouldn't be surprised if, under normal circumstances, they ended up keeping it up. But I wouldn't be surprised the other way either. But closing our eyes to the optics of the situation would be a mistake. These are not normal circumstances by a long shot. Given the turmoil Twitter is going through and the heavy handed approach the new management is employing, it seems likely to me that very little work is being done through the normal channels (who's to say there's even someone on the other side of that channel?), while much is being done by direct instruction from the new management.
  - politician 4y ago
    Isn't it more likely that organizational inertia is the culprit? Elon doesn't have the capability to change the day-to-day activities of 7,500 people following established policies and procedures in the amount of time that he's had the authority to do so. There are some coarse-grained things that he can do, like fire the the top execs. The idea that he can strategize and effect change at the fine-grained level of emergent phenomena like a picture of an internal comms channel is bonkers, conspiracy theory stuff. He's got to lay off half the company to begin to even get some kind of handle on all of the machinations going on outside of his team's review.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  There is no expedience exception for free speech. If they want to claim to value free speech, they need to actually do so, and that includes making that kind of judgement call.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  > "no public posting of internal communications" If you're really a free speech absolutist then this is a violation of that principle (not of a law, but of a principle). Workers should be able to freely talk about their condition with other workers, both internally and externally to the company. And as an absolutist, then the ability of individuals to freely speak without any chilling effects must take precedence over the companies concerns. The employees are effectively being "cancelled" and much more effectively than the people who most complain about that actually have their ability to speak being impaired.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Contracts are not laws. Contracts are an exchange of value. The civil court system enforces those contracts. For example, failing to pay your mortgage is not theft. It is a contract dispute. If you freely accept payment in exchange for not revealing certain secrets, that does not violate your free speech rights in any way.
    - lamontcg 4y ago
      > If you're really a free speech absolutist then this is a violation of that principle (not of a law, but of a principle). I literally wasn't talking about free speech rights.
qaq 4y ago
If it had anything that's PI under GDPR for example like names
blueprint 4y ago
the fact there's an internal communication system and what stack it's built on, for starters. I'd imagine employees were required to agree not to disclose that sort of info but I could be mistaken.
mcrad 4y ago
Why does it matter how vital the info it is? You "oh, please" people love to split hairs until you miss the overarching point.

WalterBright 4y ago

It's much easier to have a rule that says "no public posting of internal communications" than "make a judgement call about whether an internal communication is vital or not". And with an upheaval going on at Twitter at the moment, nobody has the time to do the latter.

mathattack 4y ago
This! Sometimes it’s not bad behavior, it’s “we just don’t have time for this sh!t.” Their HR and PR people are busy enough today. This isn’t a broad defense of Musk or Twitter. Just a comment that there doesn’t have to be a conspiracy around any corner.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  Whether it is malicious or lazy, it shows where "free speech" ranks among their values. You have time for the things you really care about.
meheleventyone 4y ago
But it's one thing to have that rule and punish people that leak and another to delete the leaks from your platform. Particularly if you profess to be pro-freedom of speech.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Leaking confidential information that you agreed to not leak is actionable as a contract violation. It's not a free speech issue.
  - meheleventyone 4y ago
    Of course it is. The contract is merely an agreement that you won't exercise your right. It's actionable in a civil court obviously. That however says nothing about your right to publish or that the content must be removed just that changing your mind might have repercussions.
    - johnbellone 4y ago
      It isn't.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Are you suggesting that Twitter will similarly remove leaks of other companies' confidential information? Or is this just a special case where they will be free speech absolutists for everyone else but carefully curate what people are allowed to say about Twitter?
    - mcrad 4y ago
      Twitter has a responsibility to its shareholders to protect its information. Why on earth are people jumping to the conclusion they would take on any similar responsibility for another company??
      - ytpete 4y ago
        Because not doing so would fly completely in the face of everything Elon claimed he wanted Twitter to stand for. They would be putting their finger on the scale to censor speech critical of Twitter, and Twitter only. (Or maybe other favored groups and politicians too, who knows? Starting off like this on day 1 kills any trust in neutral moderation immediately). Edit: that said, I'm not sure it's been confirmed yet whether the employee just deleted the tweet themself - which would be a very different story.
        mcrad 4y ago
        Twitter is a beast. I think it would be a mistake to evaluate what it "stands for" based on some edge case of who/what/why behind a single tweet. Consider the fact that most execs at the top of this thing we call capitalism, are routinely caught in ethical dilemmas. Even the individuals you have decided are on your "side" morally, are forced to occasionally compromise their ethics in the short term, to achieve a longer term goal that is far more complex than people are giving credit here when they use terms like free speech so casually.
maxbond 4y ago
It seems far more likely removing this tweet was a response to the publicity it was getting, and was an effort to keep such dissent from being aired publicly (and thus a contradiction with Musk's stated principles and goals for this takeover), than that it was an ordinary moderation process that just happened to produce this outcome. The disruption you cite makes it far less likely that this is by the book, not more.
- shawnz 4y ago
  What makes that explanation more likely than the other? Imagine there was no optics problem here, and it was just a highly publicized tweet of some internal comms with no PR consequences, it would still obviously need to be removed, right?
  - maxbond 4y ago
    That's not obvious to me, no. What I'd imagine is something like this being escalated, and that there would be reasonable cases to be made either way; that all internal information should be removed on principle, and that removing this tweet would harm the company without improving it's security posture. Twitter has historically been pretty reluctant to remove tweets, so I wouldn't be surprised if, under normal circumstances, they ended up keeping it up. But I wouldn't be surprised the other way either. But closing our eyes to the optics of the situation would be a mistake. These are not normal circumstances by a long shot. Given the turmoil Twitter is going through and the heavy handed approach the new management is employing, it seems likely to me that very little work is being done through the normal channels (who's to say there's even someone on the other side of that channel?), while much is being done by direct instruction from the new management.
- politician 4y ago
  Isn't it more likely that organizational inertia is the culprit? Elon doesn't have the capability to change the day-to-day activities of 7,500 people following established policies and procedures in the amount of time that he's had the authority to do so. There are some coarse-grained things that he can do, like fire the the top execs. The idea that he can strategize and effect change at the fine-grained level of emergent phenomena like a picture of an internal comms channel is bonkers, conspiracy theory stuff. He's got to lay off half the company to begin to even get some kind of handle on all of the machinations going on outside of his team's review.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
actually_a_dog 4y ago
There is no expedience exception for free speech. If they want to claim to value free speech, they need to actually do so, and that includes making that kind of judgement call.
lamontcg 4y ago
> "no public posting of internal communications" If you're really a free speech absolutist then this is a violation of that principle (not of a law, but of a principle). Workers should be able to freely talk about their condition with other workers, both internally and externally to the company. And as an absolutist, then the ability of individuals to freely speak without any chilling effects must take precedence over the companies concerns. The employees are effectively being "cancelled" and much more effectively than the people who most complain about that actually have their ability to speak being impaired.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Contracts are not laws. Contracts are an exchange of value. The civil court system enforces those contracts. For example, failing to pay your mortgage is not theft. It is a contract dispute. If you freely accept payment in exchange for not revealing certain secrets, that does not violate your free speech rights in any way.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    > If you're really a free speech absolutist then this is a violation of that principle (not of a law, but of a principle). I literally wasn't talking about free speech rights.

qaq 4y ago

If it had anything that's PI under GDPR for example like names

blueprint 4y ago

the fact there's an internal communication system and what stack it's built on, for starters. I'd imagine employees were required to agree not to disclose that sort of info but I could be mistaken.

mcrad 4y ago

Why does it matter how vital the info it is? You "oh, please" people love to split hairs until you miss the overarching point.